Date a woman who is hard-headed, who is not afraid to speak her mind, who can be stubborn and passionate and wants to have the occasional debate because she wants to learn how you think and how you see the world. She questions assumptions (including her own), explores ideas, breaks molds. She is naturally curious. She wants to be stretched.

She wants to change your mind and she wants her own mind changed.

Date a woman who knows fear, sorrow, loss. Who isn’t scared to get naked. She knows that her own beauty lies in knowing her true value (but now and then she forgets, and then you can step in to remind her).

Date a woman who knows her way around her own heart and is not afraid to break it. She knows what it wants and she stands up for it with conviction.

Date a woman who knows how to make real eye contact, because she values intimacy. She thrives on her capacity to build authentic relationships and surrounds herself with only this kind.

Date a woman who knows that she loves at least one thing fiercely: her children, her work, her art, her trade, her garden, her animals.

Date a woman who you are unsure of at first, not because she doesn’t seem like enough but because she scares you a little bit in her realness. Yet she continues to surprise and challenge you in this very way every time you see her.

Date a woman who knows how to laugh at herself, who might sometimes just crack the corniest jokes but they make you smile anyway.

Date a woman who sees as much possibility in sitting in silence as she does exploring every nook: world, body, mind, soul. She holds a quiet confidence. She walks with purpose.

Date a woman who knows that her heart is fragile. When it becomes too melty and heavy she might tuck herself away to feel better: let her. Then drop her a note or stop by for tea to lighten her up (she will need this but might not be able to ask for it).

Date a woman who will drop everything in a millisecond to help a friend in need.

Date a woman who knows that love is something that comes from inside, not something that she can ‘get’ from someone else, because she knows that she is love(d).

Date a woman who accepts herself today but (gently) pushes herself to be better the next. You will want to do the same by just being around her.

Date a woman who is sure about this one thing: that we can never really be sure about anything.

Because life is fluid. And each day she realizes how beautiful and scary this is, and so she humbles herself to it. She starts each every day looking to learn, experience, create, teach something new, because she knows that this is what makes life (worth living).

Date a woman who knows art and music. She may not create it herself but she needs it to move through her because it makes her (and the world) better.

Date a woman who understands the value of taking a risk, who is not afraid of making a mistake because she knows how to pick herself back up after she falls.

She’s ready to accept your offer to help her up the next time she does.

Date a woman, not a girl. But when the little girl in her comes out now and then (and she will), you will still love her as the woman that she is.

Be with—no, know—a woman who wants to understand herself a little better each day. She wants to understand you too. You may not have met her yet, but in a way she already does.

THE RETURN OF THE PRIESTESSI’m often asked, “What is a priestess and what does she do?“

A simple explanation is to offer Webster’s definition: a priestess is a woman who officiates in sacred rites. While this is quite accurate, in truth,

a priestess is and does so much more. She serves the spiritual needs of the community.

Long ago the priestesses in communities carefully observed the patterns and rhythms of Nature. Attuning to earth’s cycles, they honored the Great Mother by performing sacred seasonal rituals. Women, seen as an embodiment of the Great Mother, were deeply revered, honored and celebrated for, like the earth, a woman too was able to grow life within her. Later in history, Roman, Greek, and Egyptian priestesses lived in holy temples. They, too, worshiped the Great Mother, the Goddess in Her many forms. They served the spiritual needs of the community as well and were also held in high esteem. Numerous hierarchies and historical events ensued. Soon, men began to fear the power of priestesses. The natural spiritual and mystical practices of priestesses were viewed as evil. Their power, greatly misunderstood, was thought to be a dark force that needed to be annihilated. Thousands of priestesses were persecuted, put to death for their beliefs and spiritual practices. Those managing to escape death fled their holy temples and went underground into hiding.

Today, in the midst of a two-thousand-year period of patriarchy, a modern-day priestess is emerging. She brings to present times richly-steeped ancient wisdom, integrating past spiritual teachings with a few spins of her own. In addition to her work as Priestess, she may also have a family and hold a conventional job as well. She holds within a deep moon-water essence, and her mission is to help bring into fruition the vital life-force energy of the almost forgotten Divine Feminine. Intuitively, she knows a conversion to a matriarchy isn’t what’s currently needed. A modern-day priestess instead directs her energy to restoring a natural, harmonious balance between the genders and All That Is. Weaving her fluid moon-water essence with the energies of the fixed sun-fire masculine, she helps re-birth Sacred Union.

Women choosing to walk the path of the priestess have answered a deep inner calling. Hearing within and resonating passionately to the ancient call of the Great Mother, a time came when each heart knew with absolute certainty… yes, this is it… Hers is the work I am to do…the very reason I’ve incarnated at this time! For me personally, the actual word “priestess” whenever spoken created an ecstatic internal hum, a familiar vibration that was/is one of pure bliss. How blessed to be so crystal clear regarding one’s life purpose! This being said, I also feel compelled to share the path of the priestess, though richly rewarding, is not an easy one. It is a path requiring deep integrity and tremendous dedication.

With courage and grace, a modern-day priestess journeys the continuous ascents and descents of life’s spiral. Constant deep inner work is a must. Confronting, clearing, healing past wounds energetically empties her of what no longer serves use or purpose. Going into the inner realms…quiet times of reflection, prayer, meditation…enables her to better “see” and “sense” her truth more clearly. Hard work and perseverance bring rewards. Soon she begins to recognize herself as a unique expression of the face of the Divine Mother. She learns to value and deeply honor her own femininity. She becomes a holy vessel, better able to hold sacred space for all humankind.

A priestess is dedicated to serving the beauty, love, and spirit in all life. She learns how to attune to and work sacredly with all energies, particularly those of Nature and the elements. Like a fluid dance of ebb and flow, a priestess works passionately to raise the vibration of our physical world, infusing it with sacredness. Illuminating all that she is and does a priestess experiences great joy when performing divinely-inspired ceremony and ritual. Often compared to a Shaman, she is able to position herself between the visible and invisible worlds, residing in the valley of enriched tension lying between the two dimensions. A High Priestess works with even finer, more subtle energy frequencies. Archetypically speaking, she is a direct emissary of the Divine Feminine represented here on Earth.

A Magdalene (another name for a High Priestess), is the trademark used for a lineage of present-day priestesses first birthed by Nicole Christine in Tuscan, Arizona in 1994.
Differing from priestesses who adhere to particular religious
or earth-based practices, a Magdalene is non-sectarian, wholly sovereign unto herself.

Posted on Sunday 15 August 2010

A few days ago, after a particularly exquisite evening with my wife Chameli, I put this post up on Facebook before going to bed:

“I have had many, many great teachers in my life. A super abundance. No one and nothing comes close to the woman who is now asleep in the bedroom. My marriage has become the guru, the salvation, the muse, the crack through which the divine shines through.”

When I woke up the next morning, there were the usual offerings of people who liked the post as well as comments. One man had the vulnerability and courage to post this on facebook:

“Thank you Arjuna for this sharing, I feel like [I’m] in front of a choice which is between feeling envious of what you have and I don’t, or instead to decide that ‘I want that too,’ and, as you show, it is possible…”

I was touched.

Over the next days, I got several more messages like this from men: vulnerable men, honest men, rare and courageous men. They came in as private messages on Facebook or through our website, and they all said basically the same thing: “I read your Facebook post. I want what you have. Show me how to get it.”

So, friends, here it is. The short guide on how to worship a woman, and why it’s the wisest thing that a man can do. First of all, lets pop a few very understandable doubts that you might have. I’m familiar with all of them.

1. “I’m wounded and damaged in my relationships to the feminine.” So am I, dear brother, so am I. My parents divorced in a messy way when I was four. I grew up alone with my mother. She did her very best to provide for me, but she was unhappy and insecure. By the time I started to have relationships with women myself in my early teens, I discovered that I had a mountain of resentments, fears, and separation in my relation to the feminine. The conscious practice of worship can become a part of healing the wounds.

2. “Arjuna, you’re lucky. You’ve got an incredible partner. I’m together with a woman who’s not like Chameli.” I really don’t have the ultimate answer to that doubt or question. It certainly could seem to be the case that I’ve been lucky in finding a great woman, but here’s how it happened for me. I’ve had a lot of less lucky connections in my life. I’ve experienced my share of the manipulative side of the feminine: the victim, the rageful, the vengeful. And I have seen the ugly side of the masculine psyche in myself. A few weeks prior to meeting Chameli, my wife, something deep and profound shifted in me, which I believe can shift for anyone in the same way.

3. “I don’t have a partner at all, and I sometimes doubt if I’ll ever meet anybody.” Being with a partner where worship is not flowing, or not being with a partner at all, are basically two aspects of the same situation: you’ve had an intuition or a glimpse of the possibilities of a deeper love, and you want more of it. The solutions are the same.

4. “I feel my heart is closed down. I live in my head a lot, and I wouldn’t even know what worship was if it broke into my house at 2 o’clock in the morning and held me at gunpoint.” That’s where the whole thing starts for all of us, when we realize that we don’t yet know how to love. And that’s that the big question that you have to consider: “Is that okay with me?” Never mind how much money you make, or how many friends you have on Facebook, no matter how nice a house you live in, or no matter how big a car you drive, no matter how impressive your partner’s bust size, or how much you meditate and become spiritual… have you loved for real, in a total and undefended way? If not, and here’s where you have to be honest with yourself, is that OK with you? Is it OK to die one day without the heart’s gift having been fully given?

Eight or nine years ago, I came to that question in myself, exactly that, and I discovered that the answer was, if I was was raw and vulnerable and uncomplicated, that it was actually not OK. If I died one day without having fully loved, it would not have truly been a life well lived.

Many many years ago, I went to Bali for a vacation, on my own. I met up with some other young travelers there and we hired a Jeep to take us on a tour of the island. We drove up right to the highest point of the island, where Tourists don’t usually go. Our guide took us to one of the most sacred temples. It was surrounded by a big brick wall with an ornate entrance. After removing our shoes and wrapping scarves around our heads, we stepped together through this entrance. Inside, there was a short courtyard and then another brick wall with another entrance. After more preparations of lighting incense and giving offerings, we stepped through the second entrance. We were allowed to go through the opening in one more wall, but that was it. All together there were ten walls around the deity in the middle. Hindus could go beyond the fourth wall. Devotees of that particular deity could go beyond the fifth wall, and so it went on. The only people allowed to approach the deity directly were those who had given their lives completely and totally to its worship. Everyone else could come a little closer, a little closer, to the innermost beauty, but not all the way to the center.

I’m not a big believer of the worship of statues, but there’s a beautiful symbolism to what I saw there, because a woman’s heart is just like that. At the essence of every woman’s heart is the divine feminine. It contains everything that has ever been beautiful, or lovely, or inspiring, in any woman, anywhere, at any time. The very essence of every woman’s heart is the peak of wisdom, the peak of inspiration, the peak of sexual desirability, the peak of soothing, healing love. The peak of everything. But it’s protected, for good reason, by a series of concentric walls. To move inwardly from one wall to the next requires that you intensify your capacity to devotion, and as you do so, you are rewarded with Grace. This is not something you can negotiate verbally with a woman. She doesn’t even know consciously how to open those gates herself. They are opened magically and invisibly by the keys of worship.

If you stand on the outside of the outermost wall, all you have available to you, like many other unfortunate men, is pornography. For $1.99 a minute, you can see her breasts, maybe her vagina, and you can stimulate yourself in a sad longing for deeper love.

Step through another gate, and she will show you her outer gift-wrapping. She’ll look at you with a certain twinkle in her eye. She’ll answer your questions coyly. She’ll give you just the faintest hint that there is more available.

Step through another gate with your commitment, with your attention, with the small seedlings of devotion, and she’ll open her heart to you more. She’ll share with you her insecurities, the way that she’s been hurt, her deepest longings. Some men will back away at this point. They realize that the price they must pay to go deeper is more than they are willing to give. They start to feel a responsibility. But for those few who step though another gate, they come to discover her loyalty, her willingness to stick with you no matter what, her willingness to raise your children, stick up for you in conversation, and, if you are lucky, even pick up your dirty socks now and then. And so it goes on. You’ve got the gist by now.

Somewhere around the second wall from the center, she casts the veils of her personality aside, and shows you that she is both a human being and also a portal into something much greater than that. She shows you a wrath that is not hers, but all women’s. She shows you a patience that is also universal. She shows you her wisdom. At this point you start to experience the archetypes of women, who have been portrayed as goddesses and mythological figures in every tradition.

Then, at the very center, in the innermost temple itself, all the layers of your devotion are flooded with reward all at once. You discover the very essence of the feminine, and in a strange way that is not exactly romantic, but profoundly sacred all the same, you realize that you could have got here with any woman if you had just been willing to pass through all the layers of initiation. Any woman is every woman, and every woman is any woman at the same time. When you love a woman completely, at the very essence of her being, this is the one divine feminine flame. It is what has made every woman in history beautiful. It’s the flame behind the Mona Lisa, and Dante’s Beatrice, and yes, also Penelope Cruz and Heidi Klum. You discover the magic ingredient which has lead every man to fall in love with a woman.

When you learn how to pay attention to the essence of the feminine in this way, you fall to the floor in full body prostration, tears soaking your cheeks and clothes, and you wonder how you could have ever taken Her, in all of Her forms, for granted even for a second.

So just a couple small questions remain. First, do you get what I’m talking about? Does it jive for you? Does it make sense? And second, if yes, how are you going to get from where you are now to being able to the full capacity of your heart to love for real? I’d be glad to share more about this if we get to know each other better, but here’s how you get started.First, do what I did, and create an altar in your room dedicated to Divine Feminine. Put only symbols of the feminine on it. I have a painting called “Beatrix” by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. I have a statue of Quan Kin. Populate your altar with anything that reminds you of the feminine, and spend a few minutes of the day in worship. Yes, worship. Adoration. Devotion. Offer up rose petals. Offer poems. Offer everything, and beg Her to reveal Her innermost essence to you. This will work miracles whether you’re single and waiting to meet the right woman or whether you’re already in relationship and long to meet your woman in a deeper way.

The second way to get started: make a practice, a discipline, of telling your woman, or any woman, ten times a day something which you adore about her. “I love the smell of your shampoo.” “I love the way you laugh.” “The color of your eyes is so beautiful.” Of course, you need to keep it appropriate. You can go as far out on a limb as you like if you’re in relationship with a woman, but with anyone else remember the gates. Keep you communication appropriate to the gate number that you find yourself at. Appreciation the curve of a woman’s breast, for example, if she happens to be the cashier at the supermarket, would equate more to harassment than worship.So here’s enough to get started. Of course, there’s a lot more we can say about this. Feel free to post your comments below, and I’ll use them as the foundation for future blogs.

Tantric love-making is a matter of the heart and feelings. The two partners come to each other from the sacred heart space and meet each other on the level of their high being – that part of them that is their most beautiful, loving, compassionate, up-lifted selves. They honor, cherish and revere each other because they chose to focus on the best in each other, especially during their intimate times together. They bring sacredness to their sexual experiences with each other and yet at the same time free up that part of them that is wild, abandoned, primitive and spontaneous. In normal love-making, the novelty of new lovers keeps them very attentive and honoring with each other and thus the sex is hot. Over-time familiarity steps in and couples become less attentive and honoring with each other, and begin to take each other for granted. They do the same thing over and over again in the same location and, often at the same times, and are not fully attentive as they do it. As a result the sex becomes routine and they lose their desire for each other and become disappointed in their sexual partnership with each other.

Normal sex is a fast moving, continual escalating rise of energy from no excitement to a peak of excitement and orgasm The goal of intercourse is orgasm – an orgasm on the part of the man that comes far too soon for most women to have orgasm during intercourse. Tantric sex has no goal but to enjoy the moment. It is a slow, heart connected, experience with rises and falls of energy and plateaus and multiple peaks that goes on and on over extended time.

With Tantricas, there is a lot of eye contact and heart connection, a lot of playfulness and even silliness. There may be breaks for erotic dancing, snacks, a change of positions, such as from man on top to scissors position, or from sitting in yab yum to anal sex, from sensual massage and erotic sensual delights that pleasure the skin, taste, smell and ears of a blind folded receiver, and that might include sucking liqueur off a breast, or searching for a grape in a yoni (the Tantric term for vagina), to making love in a Tantra swing hung from the ceiling. There is no push for anyone’s orgasm and at no point does anyone want there to be more arousal than there is. The desire only is to totally enjoy whatever is happening and to be fully present to it to all the enjoyment it has to offer.

When a fairly spiritual male friend of mine, who had finally found and was deepening into committed relationship with his soul mate, confided in me he was thinking of being single again, and in the next breath expressed his latest idea for raising consciousness worldwide, I wrote this poem.

If you want to change the world… love a woman-really love her.Find the one who calls to your soul, who doesn’t make sense.Throw away your check list and put your ear to her heart and listen.Hear the names, the prayers, the songs of every living thing-every winged one, every furry and scaled one,every underground and underwater one, every green and flowering one,every not yet born and dying one…Hear their melancholy praises back to the One who gave them life.If you haven’t heard your own name yet, you haven’t listened long enough.If your eyes aren’t filled with tears, if you aren’t bowing at her feet,you haven’t ever grieved having almost lost her.

If you want to change the world… love a woman-one womanbeyond yourself, beyond desire and reason,beyond your male preferences for youth, beauty and varietyand all your superficial concepts of freedom.We have given ourselves so many choiceswe have forgotten that true liberationcomes from standing in the middle of the soul’s fireand burning through our resistance to Love.There is only one Goddess.Look into Her eyes and see-really seeif she is the one to bring the axe to your head.If not, walk away. Right now.Don’t waste time “trying.”Know that your decision has nothing to do with herbecause ultimately it’s not with who,but when we choose to surrender.

If you want to change the world… love a woman.Love her for life-beyond your fear of death,beyond your fear of being manipulatedby the Mother inside your head.Don’t tell her you’re willing to die for her.Say you’re willing to LIVE with her,plant trees with her and watch them grow.Be her hero by telling her how beautiful she is in her vulnerable majesty,by helping her to remember every day that she IS Goddessthrough your adoration and devotion.

If you want to change the world… love a womanin all her faces, through all her seasonsand she will heal you of your schizophrenia-your double-mindedness and half-heartednesswhich keeps your Spirit and body separate-which keeps you alone and always looking outside your Selffor something to make your life worth living.There will always be another woman.Soon the new shiny one will become the old dull oneand you’ll grow restless again, trading in women like cars,trading in the Goddess for the latest object of your desire.Man doesn’t need any more choices.What man needs is Woman, the Way of the Feminine,of Patience and Compassion, non-seeking, non-doing,of breathing in one place and sinking deep intertwining rootsstrong enough to hold the Earth togetherwhile she shakes off the cement and steel from her skin.

If you want to change the world… love a woman, just one woman .Love and protect her as if she is the last holy vessel.Love her through her fear of abandonmentwhich she has been holding for all of humanity.No, the wound is not hers to heal alone.No, she is not weak in her codependence.

If you want to change the world… love a womanall the way throughuntil she believes you,until her instincts, her visions, her voice, her art, her passion,her wildness have returned to her-until she is a force of love more powerfulthan all the political media demons who seek to devalue and destroy her.

If you want to change the world,lay down your causes, your guns and protest signs.Lay down your inner war, your righteous angerand love a woman…beyond all of your striving for greatness,beyond your tenacious quest for enlightenment.The holy grail stands before youif you would only take her in your armsand let go of searching for something beyond this intimacy.

What if peace is a dream which can only be re-memberedthrough the heart of Woman?What if a man’s love for Woman, the Way of the Feminineis the key to opening Her heart?

If you want to change the world…love a womanto the depths of your shadow,to the highest reaches of your Being,back to the Garden where you first met her,to the gateway of the rainbow realmwhere you walk through together as Light as One,to the point of no return,to the ends and the beginning of a new Earth.

Recognized internationally as a teacher, speaker, and healer, Rodolfo has shared the same stage as Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, and other great consciousness leaders.

Rodolfo grew up in San Diego, California where after attending his first 10-day silent course of Vipassana meditation, was inspired to begin teaching.

In San Diego, Rodolfo founded The Center for Connection, a non-profit organization dedicated to the values of presence, trust, and altruism. He has since taken those same principles and carried them into communities worldwide.

In 2008, he took off on a 9-month journey around the globe that landed him in Bali where he continues his work of connecting community, holding space for authentic expression, and giving heart felt hugs. He has over 10 years of experience practicing and teaching these techniques, and has helped hundreds to manifest their deepest desires for joy.

It would be easy to define Rodolfo by the roles that he might play as a teacher or as a healer, but who we truly are, is the essence between those roles and identities. And in this way, Rodolfo is an expert at holding space for the authentic expression of who you are, inside or outside your roles.

Currently, Rodolfo is creating online platforms to accelerate the connection of conscious communities and facilitators. His projects can be seen here – Integrated Potential

What I relish from you more than anything is presence. I hunger for you to have the capacity to maintain deep, unwavering eye contact, undistracted by anything in the background. I crave your deep, resonant voice, and the slow methodical speed of your well thought out words. I yearn for you to breathe each breath with me and guide me to deepen my presence through example.

I am eager for you to stand strong, tall and powerful without figeting or getting restless. I love it when your face is relaxed enough to take me in with or without smiling, but always with deep breaths and a steady gaze. I love it when your head is held high, your spine is tall, your body looks strong and powerful. I adore it when you can hold me in a tender embrace long enough for me to melt.

I ache for your stability so I can be wild, expressive, and emotional. I want to be able to let go and go crazy with desire, passion, anger or sadness and see you still here and unwavering, just beinglike an eternal mountain range~ grounded and dependable. I long to feel your ability to stay through discomfort.

I love and adore your power because it is great and ferocious, but only when it is fueled by protective love instead of anger or the desire to control. I yearn to feel your devotion instead of any agenda to fix, solve, or match my energy. I want you to be a man so I can be fully what it is to be a woman. I love the strong, distinct flavor of male energy and I want to taste it in you through your passionate dedication to show up.

I need you to desire and cherish my radiance above your own. I need to feel that my beauty brings you into your body and gives meaning to your life. While I love that you feel emotions and I want to know about them, I hope overall you are the force of stability so I don’t need to constantly carry the mantle of strength… that diminishes my feminine light and hurts my spirit.

I love it when the flow of masculine and feminine ebbs back and forth between us both. It feels nice when you can show your strength in softness and I can flow my femininity through action… this feels delicious when we play it together. What I crave above all is the polarity in whatever dance we explore so we are magnetically drawn together.

Overall, I need you to know that I adore you! When you stand tall in your greatest power, I become the most tender, flowing and open. I want nothing more then to unleash and soften with you. I want nothing more than to trust you fully and give myself totally to you.”